Porn websites riddled with malware says new research

cloud493

Browsing some of the internet's most popular pornography websites is increasingly putting visitors at risk, research has found.

Advertisements displayed by the sites, which are visited by millions every day, were found to be installing harmful files without users' knowledge.

Researcher Conrad Longmore found that two popular sites - xhamster.com and pornhub.com - posed the greatest risk.

He said it should be easier for users to report malicious advertising.

He said it was primarily Windows users at risk, but that criminals were increasingly turning their attentions to mobile devices.

While none of the porn sites observed hosted any malware themselves, it was the embedded advertisements within their pages that created problems for users.

"We call these malicious advertisements 'malvertising'," explained Mr Longmore.

"The way the ads are bought and sold across all websites is incredibly complex.

"Ads can often be repackaged and resold so that it is hard to tell where they originated from, and the criminals behind them go to great lengths to disguise what they are doing."



'Sudden spike'

Mr Longmore compiled his figures using Google's diagnostic advice service, which regularly analyses websites for harmful content.

The data showed that xhamster.com - listed by monitoring firm Alexa as the 46th most popular site on the internet - had malvertising on 1,067 out of 20,986 pages (5%) screened in the past 90 days.

According to Alexa's statistics, the average user of xhamster.com would look at 10.3 individual pages - meaning a potential 42% risk of stumbling across harmful adverts in each viewing session.

Another site, pornhub.com, was found to have dangerous advertising on 12.7% of its pages.

Mr Longmore said: "There seems to have been a sudden spike in malware on popular sites, especially in the past week or so. "

However, the web's most popular porn site, xvideos.com, was not found to have any harmful adverts in the time sampled by Google's system - a sign the site had "cleaned up".



Reporting mechanism

Mr Longmore believes a culture of users being afraid to "kick up a fuss" means many instances of malvertising go unreported.

"Part of the problem is that porn is a taboo subject," he said.

"But the reality is that these are hugely popular sites with many of them in the top 100 most popular sites globally. Some of them pull in more traffic than the BBC, so this is potentially a very big issue.

"Site operators could put a quick reporting mechanism on their sites to flag up bad ads and other concerns, and ad networks should also take some responsibility here.



"I don't see that happening any time soon, and perhaps the best thing that users of these sites can do is ensure that their machines are up to date."

The BBC has approached the owners of xhamster.com and pornhub.com but has yet to receive any comment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22093141

smash

And this is new research?

Duggy747

Streaming sites for Movies + TV shows are a haven for adverts carrying these viruses, too. Up until recently, the Gardaì virus was doing the rounds through these sites.

You'd think the above article would be common knowledge but people just assume viruses come from downloading torrents.

VinLieger

LOL thats some fine hard hitting investigative journalism especially the complete lack of any mention of ad blocker

Kylo Ren

The most fun research ever undertook.

Professey Chin

Well I for one am shocked. I thought all those girls in my area were genuine!

TerrorFirmer

Chinpool wrote: »

Well I for one am shocked. I thought all those girls in my area were genuine!

All 100,000 of them in my small Irish town....

Hardonraging

The only words that stood out for me in that article were 'Sudden spike'

So.. how many people went to do a malware scan after reading this thread?

cml387

Who's Kate?

returnNull

Am i the only one that uses adblock?amateurs!
EDIT: by amateurs i was refering to people that dont use adblock not eh amateurs on eh those websites

Allyall

I'm not entirely sure i believe them.. Going off to check it out myself..

davet82

so this malware is computerised gonorrhea for your computer?

Ihatecuddles-old

I wish I knew what any of this meant.

BillyMitchel

What sort of eejit clicks on the adverts anyway? Most only go there for a quick peddle and crank not to sign up to fùckbook and other crappy fake sites.

Ihatecuddles-old

BillyMitchel wrote: »

What sort of eejit clicks on the adverts anyway? Most only go there for a quick peddle and crank not to sign up to fùckbook and other crappy fake sites.

When you click play on the video, the adverts pop up in a new window.

Or so I've heard...

mike65

Deleted User wrote: »

So.. how many people went to do a malware scan after reading this thread?

Did mine yesterday, it took 3 hours. Only had 32 dodgy files as well!

(I got one of those bogus Java update pop ups and while I didn't do anything so stupid like click it, these can be sneaky ****ers and infiltrate the system anyway).

Dave0301

Viruses from online sex sites, it's just like real life sex for me now

hal9000

Other fine investigative journalism from this writer include "Sky Blue" & "Kettle Black"

cherryghost

Anyone who clicks on dodgy links deserves to have virus'/malware anyway

Allyall

Nope, Couldn't find any malware.

jimmycrackcorm

If you suffer from premature ejaculation then the malware won't have time to take effect.

Not that I'd know anyway....

johnr1

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

All 100,000 of them in my small Irish town....

Haha, reminds me of that other great porn site "plentyoffish"

There used to be about 5 or 10 astoundingly hot women based in each tiny village eg Adrigole Co Cork or Ahatsgra or Cullahill - plsces with about 5 houses each. All said wimmins were into theatre, golf, Gaa, fishing :pac: or some other hobby a fiftysomething might enjoy, and all were devoutly Catholic. "Taking care of their man" was their greatest motivation in life.
Anyone that stupid has bigger issues in their lives than malware tbh.

Does the malware exist on those sites themselves or is it only if you click on any links that are within them? In all honesty, you gotta be pretty silly to click on them.

Though I am intrigued to know how Ron Jeremy can help make my penis bigger ...

Anyone

I should stop....think I am watching too much porn anyway and its affecting my everyday life....this morning for example, I spat on the keyhole before I put the key in.

Thats why one should use linux for viewing porn sites.

karma_

Deleted User wrote: »

Does the malware exist on those sites themselves or is it only if you click on any links that are within them? In all honesty, you gotta be pretty silly to click on them.

Though I am intrigued to know how Ron Jeremy can help make my penis bigger ...

Yes, I'd like to know this too. Just out of curiosity like... no rush... but the sooner the answer the better!!

Seachmall

Deleted User wrote: »

Does the malware exist on those sites themselves or is it only if you click on any links that are within them? In all honesty, you gotta be pretty silly to click on them.

Though I am intrigued to know how Ron Jeremy can help make my penis bigger ...

They could load when the advert loads so you don't need to click them.

Adblocker + Browser Updates + OS Updates + Regular Scans and you'll be fine.

johnr1

Anyone wrote: »

I should stop....think I am watching too much porn anyway and its affecting my everyday life....this morning for example, I spat on the keyhole before I put the key in.

:D:D
Fcuk you !!!! I spat my coffee over my phone..... (its always coffee, isnt it)

Myrddin

henry_sellers wrote: »

surfing free porn sites has many risks , most of them are now riddled with underage - illegl material , scattered amongst the general stuff and no ive never clicked but the windows are clearly visible

Ah so thats why the BBC sacked you?

ringadingding

BBC, sponsored by xvideos it seems

Kylo Ren

Chinpool wrote: »

Well I for one am shocked. I thought all those girls in my area were genuine!

Don't mind that. With our new ripped bodies in 2 weeks and new penis elongating technique, we will not need them.

returnNull

henry_sellers wrote: »

surfing free porn sites has many risks , most of them are now riddled with underage - illegl material , scattered amongst the general stuff and no ive never clicked but the windows are clearly visible

Bullsh1t.

Never ever seen any dodgy stuff on xhamster,youporn,redtube,xvideos.And by dodgy I mean under the age of consent dodgy not some-fat-aul-wan-getting-a-hammering dodgy

Ruu

Mr. Longmore, you funny bastid.

paddy147

Lad in work got a "garda/ireland police force" notice on his laptop screen the other day.

It locked his laptop and asked him to pay 100 euro to unlock it.

Obviously a scam,as the gardai dont do things like that,do they???

Darkglasses

You're right the first time!

Jamie Starr

paddy147 wrote: »

Lad in work got a "garda/ireland police force" notice on his laptop screen the other day.

It locked his laptop and asked him to pay 100 euro to unlock it.

Obviously a scam,as the gardai dont do things like that,do they???

No. Just the government.

paddy147

Agnostic Mantis wrote: »

No. Just the government.

never thought of that.

That b^stard Phil Hogan is at it again....:pac::pac:

Truncheon Rouge

johnr1 wrote: »

:D:D
Fcuk you !!!! I spat my coffee over my phone..... (its always coffee, isnt it)

You coffee'd all over its screen ??

Phew... I'm a happy Spankwire user today!!

paddy147

Didnt someone hack the Disney website a few years ago..and kids who logged onto it saw hardcore porn videos instead??

Sorry,but that really is just sick.

returnNull

paddy147 wrote: »

Didnt someone hack the Disney website a few years ago..and kids who logged onto it saw hardcore porn videos instead??

Sorry,but that really is just sick.

true and also a french satelite tv company accidently broadcast porn to the middleast by mistake too, lol

EuskalHerria

paddy147 wrote: »

Didnt someone hack the Disney website a few years ago..and kids who logged onto it saw hardcore porn videos instead??

Sorry,but that really is just sick.

This is hilarious. Not due to your off topic anecdote, more to do with you asking a question then getting angry at it.

Fox_In_Socks

Many of the people appearing on porn websites are riddled as well.

Ho ho!

jester77

Deleted User wrote: »

So.. how many people went to do a malware scan after reading this thread?

ehh, not me. I decided to conduct my own research (thank you BBC)... who knew that research could be so exhausting!

paddy147

EuskalHerria wrote: »

This is hilarious. Not due to your off topic anecdote, more to do with you asking a question then getting angry at it.

Eh....innocent kids/young children and the sick fcukers in this world who prey on them/target them,and think that its all great and good.:mad::mad:

paddy147

Fox_In_Socks wrote: »

Many of the people appearing on porn websites are riddled as well.

Ho ho!

Did you see the programme that Louis Theroux did for Channel 4 about the porn industry back in the 80s and now in 2012,and how is has gone downhill.

A good few actors (male and female) got the disease out of it and some are dead,some died from drug overdoses and some just went plain nutts.

The programme didnt show much in the way of the actual sex scenes,but more what it was like for a porn actor off screen and trying to have a normal life.


Also the advent of the internet and how its killed off the big/well paid porn stars and their big sallaries.

lovesfatgirls

in other news on the six-one this evening: research has shown that ageing may cause death, however results were inconclusive due to test subjects dying before any real evidence could be gathered..

seriously guys though stop typing sex leg into google.

ScumLord

Deleted User wrote: »

Does the malware exist on those sites themselves or is it only if you click on any links that are within them? In all honesty, you gotta be pretty silly to click on them.

I would assume they can load the malware without you clicking on the ad, some ads are hidden within links that look genuine too. Ads that are basic jpegs probably won't hold a virus but few ads are basic jpegs anymore.

Capt'n Midnight

Chinpool wrote: »

Well I for one am shocked. I thought all those girls in my area were genuine!

http://xkcd.com/713/

Capt'n Midnight

Two handy firefox extensions that cut down on those sort of ads
Adblock
Noscript - only allow scripts on sites you trust

also be wary of clicking on images from google image search, some malware site are using them to lure people into clicking into their site. And it's probably a funny picture of a cat that'll get you.